DESCRIPTION: The goals of this career development plan are to contribute to osteoblast biology and endosseous implant related activities through fundamental studies of gene transcription, to establish a laboratory that will provide exemplary training of students, fellows, and clinician-scientists, and to develop clinical research interests supported by and complimentary to these research interests. This will be achieved through a) one year of formal training in a combination of three leading molecular biology laboratories at UNC, and b) four years of 75% research effort devoted towards accomplishing the specific aims of the research project. The aims are to investigate: 1) transcriptional suppression as a mechanism for tissue-specific constitutive expression of hsp27; 2) estrogenic control of hsp27 transcription in osteoblasts; and 3) the chaperone function of hsp27 in osteoblasts. Dr. Roland Arnold, Director of the Dental Research Center, will serve as lead sponsor of this career development program. Dr. Cooper plans to attend two relevant basic research meetings/symposia per year, while other travel to dental research meetings will be covered by the applicant s R29 award and departmental funds. Carolina Workshops on transgenic mice, on construction and screening of peptide phage display libraries, and on biomedical microscopy are planned and budgeted for the first three years of the award period.